


Where Is the Scarlet Pimpernel?

by FleuretteFfoulkes



Category: The Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Orczy
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Interrogation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:27:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27424927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FleuretteFfoulkes/pseuds/FleuretteFfoulkes
Summary: Edward wondered how much damage they'd done to his hands by now. However was he to explain this, when he got back to England?
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8
Collections: Trope Bingo: Round Fifteen





	Where Is the Scarlet Pimpernel?

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the square "Torture/Interrogation" on my Trope Bingo card.

"Where is the Scarlet Pimpernel?"

The words lanced through Edward Hastings' skull, making his head throb. Or perhaps it was the pain in his hands that made his head swim so; each finger seemed to be sending a separate spike of pain directly into his brain. He seemed to be kneeling somewhere, though he didn't recall at all how he could have ended up there. 

The last thing he remembered was...what was it? His brain felt as if it had naught in common with anything more potent than pudding, but he felt that it was rather important that he figure out how he had ended up here, and so he pressed on. They had departed for the parting place of the d'Amaries, and then...and then it had been a trap, he remembered that, and they had all fled in separate directions. He must have been captured then; he only hoped that he had led his pursuers away from the others and thus been the only one captured. He could remember nothing after that. The throbbing in his hands hinted that they had been questioning him for quite some time, but his memory seemed to have mercifully elided the last hour or two for him.

"I'll ask you again." French. The man was speaking French, Edward was nearly sure. Not that it was any great surprise—English speakers were much less likely to be as inimical to the Chief as this person seemed to be—but to be sure of anything was a decent feat when his head was spinning so. "Where"— _crack_ , and his hand bloomed with pain anew—"is the"— _crack_ ; Edward realized blurrily that they were breaking his fingers, and he must be dazed indeed, not to be more alarmed at the thought—"Scarlet Pimpernel?"

"Hell," Edward muttered, with some effort.

"Nay, Monsieur, he is not there yet," his interrogator said. "But I assure you, we will escort him there soon enough."

"I was...unclear," Edward grunted. " _You_. You go to hell." He used the overly familiar _tu_ pronoun, hoping it would annoy his captors. Demme, but they deserved to be annoyed. If the Chief were here, he'd know how to drive them all into such a tizzy of annoyance that they would run around in circles chasing each other while the Chief slipped out unharmed. 

Gad, unharmed... Edward wondered how much damage they'd done to his hands by now. However was he to explain this, when he got back to England?

Someone was slapping his face. "You work for the Scarlet Pimpernel, do you not?" his interrogator snarled. "Yes or no."

"No," Edward lied, half out of curiosity of how they would respond (for they certainly knew it was a lie), and half because he didn't dare start telling them truths because what if he forgot to stop?

He doubled over, gasping for breath, as someone kicked him in the stomach in reply. Nobody made a move to hold him up, and he slowly toppled over until his face was pressed against the cool dusty ground.

"...the Scarlet Pimpernel, where is he..." somebody was saying above him, but whatever came next Edward couldn't tell, because the world had grown mercifully dark and silent.

* * *

"Ned. Ned." The whisper was harsh and urgent. Edward rolled over on his side and groaned, struggling to remember what had happened and how he had ended up here. Not to mention where "here" even was.

"Ned, you're safe now, but we need to move. Wake up."

_Safe_... Edward groaned again, and blinked his eyes a few times until they deigned to remain open. At first, all he could tell was that he hurt all over, but as he paid more attention, he became slowly aware that the pain was concentrated in his side and his hands.

His hands! The memory of what his captors had done to him came flooding back all at once, and he sat up abruptly. The movement made his head swim and he regretted it at once, but then strong arms were around him, taking his weight and pulling him to his feet.

"The Chief's found a carriage for you to ride in, but I'm afraid you're going to have to walk a little ways first." It was his cousin John's voice, light and cheerful, though Edward suspected it was all false cheer. "It's your fault, you know, for being too heavy for me to carry," John added.

"Is everyone safe?" Edward mumbled, putting one leaden foot in front of another as John dragged him gently along. "The Chief—I didn't let anything slip to spoil the plan, did I? Did the rescue come off all right?"

"Everyone is well except for you," John said. "And you'll be well soon enough, I feel sure of it now I've seen you. The Chief was worried sick about you. He would have come here himself, but Ffoulkes pointed out that there was no-one else who could drive the cart through the gates, and then I insisted that you were my family and it was my duty to come after you, and so he let me come in his stead."

"All by yourself? I remember at least half a dozen men holding me prisoner, unless their blows have done more to rattle my brain than I think they have."

"Oh, I'm not as foolish as all that," John said, with a laugh that seemed rather forced. "I brought Ffoulkes, Holte, Bathurst, and Wallescourt with me. But they've all run off chasing your captors, while I stayed behind to see to you. Oh, and Stowmarries is waiting in the carriage, which is just ahead. You see it?"

Edward was, in fact, too busy looking at his own feet and making sure he didn't trip over them to look for the carriage, but he didn't bother to explain all that to John, limiting himself to a quiet grunt of acknowledgement. Sure enough, after another minute of following John's lead, the carriage hove into view directly in front of his down-angled gaze. John placed one hand on Edward's hip and clasped his forearm with the other, and gently helped Edward into the carriage before climbing up himself to sit across from him.

"Let's get you patched up," he said, taking one of Edward's hands in both of his. "I'm sorry we couldn't get to you sooner, you know," he said, and perhaps he said more than that, but the darkness was closing in again, and Edward was too tired to fight it.

* * *

When he woke next, he was lying in a terribly soft bed in a room that looked vaguely familiar. His hands still throbbed with pain, but his head felt much clearer. So clear, in fact, that after a minute or two of staring at the ceiling, he was able to figure out where he was. Immediately upon realizing that, he pushed himself to sit up and attempted to get out of bed. But he still couldn't move very fast, and the room's owner was right there before he knew it, pushing Edward back into the bed with one strong hand against his chest.

"I see no reason for you to get out of bed until we're 'cross the Channel," the Chief said, looming over Edward. "Your cousin informed me that you fainted in the carriage, and I won't have you fainting again on my watch."

"I don't feel faint," Edward lied. He'd never shown this much weakness in front of the Chief before, and he didn't enjoy the feeling of helplessness.

The Chief laid a hand on his shoulder. "Nevertheless," he said. "I'm humbled by the bravery you showed on my behalf, and I want to make sure you have the best of care now that you're safe."

"But, your cabin—Percy, I can't take your cabin, where will you sleep?"

"Oh, I'm sure I'll manage," the Chief said. "It's not as if I haven't ever slept rough before. And you're the only one that was hurt this time, so you deserve the best bed in the house."

"How bad is it?" Edward asked. He pulled his hands out from under the covers and stared at them. They were so festooned with bandages and wrappings that there was nothing, really to be seen—just a puffy white linen blob at the end of each arm. "However am I going to explain this away when we get back to England?"

"What excuse did you give when you left London?" John piped up, and Edward realized that they weren't alone. He turned his head to see John, sitting in an armchair in the corner while Sir Andrew Ffoulkes leaned against the wall next to him. "Fishing, wasn't it?"

Edward nodded, and was glad to realize that the movement only made his head swim slightly. "Fishing in the Lake District. Everyone knows it's quite wild that far north, but I think this sort of injury will strain belief."

"Perhaps an accident while fishing," Andrew mused. "You might have wrapped the line between your fingers when you shouldn't have, and then a giant of a fish tugged on the line with such strength that it broke several of them. You could then easily change the subject to tales of how large the fish was—"

"It ought to grow larger on every telling," Percy interposed.

"—as long as you don't lie so obviously that people assume the whole tale is a lie and not just the exact size of the fish."

"Would wrapping fishing line around your fingers even _do_ that?" John put in.

"No idea," Andrew said. "Somehow, I've not the slightest inclination to test it."

"Nor I," John and Percy chorused.

Edward chuckled weakly. "That's a good idea, because if it _is_ capable of breaking someone's fingers, then we'd have two people showing up in London with broken fingers and that would be even more suspicious."

"We're just extremely dull-witted fishermen," Andrew said. "No skill whatsoever."

"Or what if you fell off your horse?" John suggested.

"And broke both hands?"

"You tumbled down under its hooves after it bucked you off, and had the bad luck for it to step on both hands. That would account for your other injuries as well—it didn't look like you had any ribs broken but there was a decent amount of bruising and you could always play it up worse than it actually is. Of course a break from being trod on by a horse would look quite different than the breaks in your fingers do, but once they're all bandaged up one looks much like the other."

"And unlike fishing line, we do actually know that a horse can break bones," Percy said.

"I suppose that's probably as good an explanation as any," Edward said. He was beginning to feel terribly tired again. He stopped staring at his hands—it wasn't as if they would heal one whit faster from the observation—and settled back against the pillows as best as he could.

"You're going to be all right," John said. He walked over to the bed and put his hand on Edward's shoulder. "No matter how long it takes for you to heal, and no matter what wild tales you end up having to tell people about what happened to you, we're going to be there for you every step of the way. You did what had to be done, and we're going to make sure that you don't have any cause for regret."

"If you keep him awake much longer, I think he'll be regretting that," said Percy. He stood up, and something shifted minutely in his posture, and suddenly he was the Chief again and not just their old school chum. "Thank you, Hastings. I'm truly grateful for your loyalty."

He led the others out of the cabin, and the door shut slowly behind them. Edward stared at the ceiling. When Percy had started asking around for people to join his League, he'd known it involved risks. He supposed, all in all, he'd been quite lucky. He was alive, after all, and in full possession of his faculties.

But the next weeks or months—or however long it would take to heal: Edward didn't have any prior experience with broken bones—were going to be terribly long, and terribly tiresome. He wasn't looking forward to lying to all and sundry in London while the Chief ran rescues in France with one fewer person than he ought to be able to count on.

But there was nothing he could do about that now, and Percy's bed was indeed a very good bed. Edward curled up as best as he could and concentrated on the rocking of the yacht. Somewhere on the other side of the thin wooden wall were half a dozen people who ought to have been dead today and instead were alive. He supposed that made everything worth it. But even more than that, also on the other side of the wall were half a dozen of the bravest men Edward had known, and the bravest of them all had praised Edward for his own loyalty and bravery. And that, in the end, was what really made this all worth it.


End file.
